That reminds me of when I was a kid. We lived in a rural area in upstate New York. A "you can't see another house from our house" type of situation. Anyway, my father made Maple Syrup, so he had his sugar house up in the back corner of our property. One day he was up there boiling sap, and my mom went up to bring him lunch or whatever.

I remember that my sister and I were on a swing set that we had in our yard, which sat right next to the edge of the woods, and my mom walking back down from the sugar house and absolutely freezing. I could see the look of fear on her face, and it was intense. I was confused. We were just swinging. I had no idea why she would be acting like that.

She eventually started to move forward, and at that point I turned around to look. A black bear was all of about 8-10 feet behind us. Just sitting there. It almost immediately turned and walked away. It had no interest, but ****. The damn thing was there and neither my sister nor I knew, but my mom walked down and saw it sitting right behind us as we were swinging.

Thanks God that we don't have Grizzlies up there. Black Bears are pretty tame unless you **** with their cubs. We obviously were doing nothing of the sort, it was probably just curious about the swinging action. Who knows. But I didn't get eaten, so that's cool.

Kress wrote:That reminds me of when I was a kid. We lived in a rural area in upstate New York. A "you can't see another house from our house" type of situation. Anyway, my father made Maple Syrup, so he had his sugar house up in the back corner of our property. One day he was up there boiling sap, and my mom went up to bring him lunch or whatever.

I remember that my sister and I were on a swing set that we had in our yard, which sat right next to the edge of the woods, and my mom walking back down from the sugar house and absolutely freezing. I could see the look of fear on her face, and it was intense. I was confused. We were just swinging. I had no idea why she would be acting like that.

She eventually started to move forward, and at that point I turned around to look. A black bear was all of about 8-10 feet behind us. Just sitting there. It almost immediately turned and walked away. It had no interest, but ****. The damn thing was there and neither my sister nor I knew, but my mom walked down and saw it sitting right behind us as we were swinging.

Thanks God that we don't have Grizzlies up there. Black Bears are pretty tame unless you **** with their cubs. We obviously were doing nothing of the sort, it was probably just curious about the swinging action. Who knows. But I didn't get eaten, so that's cool.

Why have you never brought up the fact that you almost died?

Somewhat similar story - My parents were in the Bahamas vacationing with friends. My dad was swimming pretty far out, starts heading back toward shore. He looking in at them as he swims in, sees them all standing, waving to him, jumping up and down. He pays no attention to it, keeps swimming in. Gets to shore, can finally hear them. They were trying to get his attention to tell him to hurry the hell up because he was being tailed by a shark.

I would've died of a ****ing heart attack after hearing why those folks were screaming at/towards me..no doubt about it..gives me shivers just thinking about it..

Back to Kress' bears..I grew up in BFE too..when I was in college mom n dad let me know a black bear was terrorizing the community..people's pets we're missing, gabarge cans and screened porches destroyed..it was eating dogs right off of their chains outside..

It was shot and killed..497lbs..not a huge bear in the grand scheme of things, but a monster ****ing blackie..

NYBF wrote:Somewhat similar story - My parents were in the Bahamas vacationing with friends. My dad was swimming pretty far out, starts heading back toward shore. He looking in at them as he swims in, sees them all standing, waving to him, jumping up and down. He pays no attention to it, keeps swimming in. Gets to shore, can finally hear them. They were trying to get his attention to tell him to hurry the hell up because he was being tailed by a shark.

There is a video that was circulating around a while back that was the same thing. This guy is swimming around, and a monster hammerhead is RIGHT THERE following him. The people filming it were up on a pier of some sort, and were screaming their heads off for him to get out of the water. People on the beach were doing the same thing. The shark eventually attacked some fish that happened by, and the guy got to shore before he even knew what had just been going on.

NYBF wrote:Somewhat similar story - My parents were in the Bahamas vacationing with friends. My dad was swimming pretty far out, starts heading back toward shore. He looking in at them as he swims in, sees them all standing, waving to him, jumping up and down. He pays no attention to it, keeps swimming in. Gets to shore, can finally hear them. They were trying to get his attention to tell him to hurry the hell up because he was being tailed by a shark.

There is a video that was circulating around a while back that was the same thing. This guy is swimming around, and a monster hammerhead is RIGHT THERE following him. The people filming it were up on a pier of some sort, and were screaming their heads off for him to get out of the water. People on the beach were doing the same thing. The shark eventually attacked some fish that happened by, and the guy got to shore before he even knew what had just been going on.

There is a video that was circulating around a while back that was the same thing. This guy is swimming around, and a monster hammerhead is RIGHT THERE following him. The people filming it were up on a pier of some sort, and were screaming their heads off for him to get out of the water. People on the beach were doing the same thing. The shark eventually attacked some fish that happened by, and the guy got to shore before he even knew what had just been going on.

Good times....good times.

Looked like a pompano. I hope that you had some melted butter and lemon to go with it. I didn't see any in the video, but you sharks are sneaky like that.